


Three Wills of the Force

by imalvinflang



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reylo - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 10:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21967918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imalvinflang/pseuds/imalvinflang
Summary: So, I'm definitely not the only one massively disappointed with TRoS and its abysmal ending, so I'm gonna Run Lola Run this bad boy and present three possible endings to our Force users' story. I thought these options would be interesting, even if they for sure wouldn't dare put them in the movie. The first two endings are a little more heavy, but I'm sure a lot of you will take kindly to Number Three.Spoilers for Episode IX!
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 11
Kudos: 66





	1. Peace Beyond

**Author's Note:**

> I know, this ending may seem very dismal, but it was kind of compelling for me to think about. Would definitely not be a possibility for the movie, but at least they'd still be together, just in a different place.

Ben’s palm slammed against the stony edge of the chasm, echoing throughout the collapsed chamber. Lightning flickered overhead as if the planet itself were rearing its ugly head in defeat. Its Sith forces finally decimated, its emperor, the one who had tortured his family for generations, finally dashed to pieces. There was nothing holding him back now. He had to get to Rey. 

Heaving himself up, his crushed ribs screamed in protest against the ground. But he grunted and banished all thoughts of pain from his mind. Not even the fire searing up from his mangled leg distracted him. He hobbled forward, dust flying up with each scrape of his boots. 

There she was. On the ground as still as a broken china doll and just as sickly pale. Both lightsabers she had brought with her lay about her body, dropped there as she collapsed to the ground. His heart, already hammering harder than it ever had before, beat even faster at the sight of her just sprawled there.

Falling to his knees beside her, his worst fears were confirmed. Her eyes stared up at Exegol's perpetual storm above them, glassy and unseeing. Her skin was mottled and white, her robes bloody and dirty. 

No. This wasn’t happening. None of this was happening. Perhaps all this was just a terrible nightmare. He’d wake up in in his childhood bed, still a young boy safe in his parent’s home. But as he scooped up her lifeless corpse into his arms and held her oh so dearly to his chest, he knew better than to cast this situation into a false dream of his own.

“Rey, no… please don’t go this way…” He clutched at her, unable to move or speak anymore, only able to quiver and shake. Tears welled up in his big brown eyes as he stared over her shoulder into the stands of the destroyed Sith followers, now buried under tons and tons of rubble. The ashen remains of Palpatine swirled up into the gusts of stormy wind and were lost before his eyes.

She had done this. They had done this. It was over. All over. 

But Rey had paid the price and now Rey was gone. 

He shouted her name again and again, his voice breaking with each passing syllable. Take him, torture him, murder him and scatter his body and soul in pieces across the galaxy, he’d do it all just for one last goodbye.

Life spilled from him like water from a burst dam, and he could feel his body weakening from Palpatine’s last strike. The trembling in his limbs only escalated, his body protesting his oncoming demise. He leaned back from his embrace, letting out a ragged sigh. He knew what would happen next, and it didn’t matter if his had the strength to meet it head on or not.

He lifted Rey’s eyes up to his own. He gently placed two fingers on her eyelids and slid them closed. Now his savior, his partner in the dyad, the love of his life could finally rest, safe from the war and pain and suffering wrought upon her by a cruel galaxy. 

His vision was now spotted in black. His heart began to slow, his pulse thinning. His exhausted mind tumbled and spun. 

As he sat there dying with Rey in his arms, the smallest smile cracked through his undulating pain and misery. His mind sluggishly reached back to his Force teachings with his uncle. It had been some kind of lesson about the ghosts of the Force. What had he said to him and the other students? “No one’s ever really gone.” Could that have been it?

Luke had been right, right about so many things. The war was not over until now and he had not been the last Jedi. Maybe he could be right about that lesson after all.

He kissed Rey on her forehead, devastated to find the flesh there so cold already. 

“I’ll come back for you, sweetheart,” he whispered with every ounce of strength that still remained in his sorry body. 

Clasping her hand, he waited and waited until he couldn’t anymore. He fell back against the freezing stone floor, his hair spread about his head like a halo. Through his form was broken and as pale in death as was Rey’s, his expression was one of peace and purpose. 

Minutes passed in cold hard silence. The entwined bodies of the lovers lay still for the last time, a bittersweet monument to the end of the generations-long war. The only things stirring in the storm’s breeze were their loose pieces of hair. Slowly but surely, their forms began to fade, their clothes falling back against the stone with no more people to fill them. The air stilled and grew warmer and warmer as if a bonfire had been lit.

A ghostly Ben lurched forward, his boots making no sound against the ground. His dark tunic and trousers had been mended. His head whipped around and his eyes searched around desperately.

“Rey!” he called out. He had just been with her moments ago, cradling her delicate body in his arms. She had disappeared just as he had, but where was she?

Another blue light filled the dark, flickering chamber. Yards away, Rey had just appeared. She hugged her arms to her chest and her translucent robes swirled about her ankles. Her expression was fearful and confused.

“Rey!” A happiness like never before erupted in Ben’s chest. He rushed forward, his hair whipping around his head and smiling a wide, toothy smile.

Her eyes met his and her sadness fell away. She ran forward towards him, arms pumping at her sides.

“Ben! Ben, it’s you!” she cried. 

Before they met in the middle, Ben feared for a fraction of a moment that they would just pass through each other. But as he threw his arms around her, her body was as solid and as warm and as safe as he remembered it. 

She buried her face into the crook of his neck and cried for joy, her palms pressed flat against his shoulder blades. 

They leaned back to meet each other’s eyes. Even in her ghostly state, Ben could still pick out the freckles on her cheeks, the scars on her fingers.

Before he could speak another word, she leaned forward and kissed him fiercely. Her palm found his cheek, where she had healed his scar after their fight on the Death Star ruins. He kissed back, drinking in every taste of her, every feeling of her against him.

They broke apart and eyed each other once more. 

“It’s over,” Rey said forlornly, looking up at the sky above them. The emperor’s fleet fell from the sky, chased down by her Resistance friends. 

“It’s over,” he repeated after her. 

“So, what’s next?” she asked him. Holding out her hand, she curled her fingers around his forearm and pressed her forehead against his. 

He sighed and smiled against her touch. “Anything as long as I’m with you.”

She grinned back and moved her hand down to his. 

With one final kiss, they departed from this life, disappearing into the Force.


	2. Mourning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What really bothered me about Ben's death (besides the death itself) is that no one seemed to care that he saved Rey or died for the galaxy. Even Rey doesn't seem to react that strongly. Really? It left the film feeling really unsatisfying and rushed so I decided to try and amend that. I based this on a scene from Mad Max: Fury Road, so if you've seen that you may recognize the reference.

Rey’s world ended the moment Ben began to fall out of her arms. 

First her lips were on his, his strong arms wrapped so tight around her that not even the Force itself couldn’t pull them apart. Everything was right, everything was in balance. She wasn’t alone. They’d never be alone again.

Then he fell back against the cold stone, his eyes closed and his body terrifyingly still and limp. Right before Rey’s very eyes he began to disappear, fading into the Force. After a moment, nothing of him remained apart from his clothes, still radiating his warmth.

As he died, she felt a piece of herself die along with him. A frigid cold consumed her entire body and she could stop her muscles from shaking. Her enemy, her ally, her friend, her true love had given his heart and soul so that she would live. 

At first, she couldn’t speak. A couple of teardrops fell as she grasped at his lost clothing and hugged his shirt to her heart. Second by second the cold of the sacrificial chamber stole Ben’s heat away from her.

“No… No…” She hugged his shirt even tighter, the tears falling faster and faster and dripping onto the black fabric. 

“Please, be with me. Be with me. Be with me. Be with me.” She recalled her prayer, her voice climbing higher and higher into hysteria. 

“You can’t be gone,” Rey almost screamed. “Be with me. Be with me. Be with me.”

But no one answered. No one came. Her pleas were met with the echoes of her pain, reverberating off the towering walls of the chamber. 

Her cries of “Be with me” slowly turned to incomprehensible wails. 

The war was over. The emperor was finally gone. Her friends were victorious. But his could not be how things ended. Chewie would never see his friend again. Leia would never see her son again. Rey would never see the love of her life ever again. 

It took many long, unbearable minutes before Rey was able to move shakily to her feet. With one last broken sigh she gathered up the two lightsabers into Ben’s shirt and walked back towards the entrance and back to her X-wing.

She kept glancing behind her, to see if his beautiful brown eyes and that crooked smile had come back.

They didn’t.

…

The sands of Tatooine molded around her boots as she trudged towards the buried ruins of Master Skywalker’s childhood hut. The binary suns sat low and hot in the clear blue desert sky. Everything was quiet.

She had told Poe and Finn and Chewie to wait up for her while they cleaned up their last Resistance base. After relaying to them what exactly happened in that chamber, they’d agreed to hold off any more travel plans until she had returned. Though her friends felt sympathetic, it was a long way from the empathy Rey truly needed from them.

BB-8 hung back from Rey, sensing that she needed space. Poe had insisted that she take him along with her just in case. Just to have an eye out. 

She gazed down at the sloping clay dome of the main body of the house, chipped and eroded away in the desert winds. The moisture farmers sat buried under feet of sand, battered and neglected. Broken things from a broken age.

As much as she wanted to visit this place, to see if her old masters would speak to her and offer her guidance, she couldn’t step foot inside. Instead, she removed the lightsabers wrapped in Ben’s shirt from the satchel at her hip. Walking slowly forward, she reverently placed them at the dark entrance to the old hut. 

It was done. It was time to go home. But she didn’t want to go quite yet.

Rey turned around and faced the setting suns head on. The day of her life was fading, and the uncertain night was upon her. She took a determined step toward, away from the ruins.

Sheer horror at what had happened to her masters, to her love, tugged her down into the sand like a leaden weight. But she walked forward, towards the suns and towards the sandy horizon. BB-8 followed behind her, beeping nervously, but Rey ignored him, keeping her pace steady despite the battering beat of her damaged heart. Her eyes glazed over with emotion.

Soon she reached the top of a tall sand dune and stopped her feverish walk. A harsh wind had begun to kick up, blowing waves of sand particles across the desert in beige sheets, glimmering under the fading light of the binary suns. 

Rey sank to her knees. Her staff tumbled out of her grip and sank slightly into the sand. She trembled despite the Tatooine heat. 

She did the one thing she could do in the wake of her loved ones’ destruction. She screamed.

She closed her eyes, titled her head to the sky, and screamed. A long, hollow, outraged wail of grief and pain spread over the desert. She clasped her arms together at her chest, the nails digging into her arms hard enough to draw blood. Her body ached and begged her to stop. And yet she screamed and cried like her very soul had been murdered. 

BB-8 remained silent as she howled and raged, staying as still as his ball-shaped body could in the shifting sands. 

Her friends and comrades would always be there for her but living without Han and Luke and Leia and Ben was akin to a life completely alone. 

Rey ceased her screams and waited a few minutes before climbing to her feet, lifting her staff up to her hand. The suns had almost completely set, leaving the dunes drowning in the half-life of twilight. She wiped a hand across her cheeks to dry her tears.

She’d made up her mind in those minutes of silence. She’d go back to her friends. Then she’d travel the galaxy the way her younger self on Jakku would often dream of while staring up at the endless span of stars. Her Jedi training was still not complete, and her Jedi texts could perhaps help in that mission. 

BB-8 whistled from the base of the sand dune. She smiled at him slightly and descended from her perch, swirling sand around her boots as she slid down. 

“It’s okay,” she whispered to him, overwhelming sadness clawing her insides. “I’m alright.”

The droid beeped somberly and quivered his little body. The longer Rey watched, the more her spirits lifted, little by little. Poe had been right. Taking him had been a good idea. 

“Come on.” She slung her staff over her back and took one last glance at the lightsabers and the shirt, the last relics of the Skywalker line.

Leia and Luke and Han would always be on her mind, and Ben would always be tucked away in her heart. The pain of their losses would never truly fade away, but Rey was willing the bear that pain for their memories. She had never been a Skywalker, she’d rejected Palpatine. She would never be a part of any real family. But that meant the rest of her life was up to herself and her destiny was in her own hands. At least she could take some solace in that.

More tears spilled over her face as Rey and BB-8 left the hut behind them.


	3. The Only Way is Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the ending I (and many of us) were craving! Along with keeping a happy ending, I fixed a few issues with everyone mourning Leia and the main cast sticking together after the battle. And a lost Skywalker limb because I can. I hope you enjoy! Feel free to leave any feedback or comments for me.
> 
> P.S. shameless plug here. If any of you are interested, I also have another work called Missing Moon that's basically a different Episode IX story. Thanks for your support!

She opened her eyes and he was there.

His eyes blown wide with fear and tears threatening to slip down, Ben gazed at her as if the sun had risen after a millennium of night. As she regained consciousness, she could feel the cold stone pressing against her boots, the heat of Ben’s arms through the thin fabric of her shirt.

Her hand clasped his, both planted on her stomach where he had just planted new life within her. Just moments ago, she had been dead. Gone. Lost to the Force. But now she lay in her friend’s lap, alive and breathing as if just awaking from a deep sleep. She’d healed his wounds on the Death Star wreck and he had just returned the favor. A life for a life.

Her heart beat faster and faster, rejoicing in its second wind. The feeling returned to her fingers and toes. Even the cold air hitting her skin seemed refreshing.

Grasping his hand, Rey smiled as she took in everything about Ben. His wild raven locks, the sweat beading his skin, the quiver of his full lips. She could tell right then and there that the Kylo Ren she knew had been cast into the surf of that treacherous ocean. This was Ben Solo. Her Ben Solo.

“Ben.” The name was no more than a whisper, but her voice seemed to lighten and warm the very chamber itself. 

His expression turned beautifully tender, eyes softening. Hints of a smile broke through his stern face.

Rey reached up and placed her hand reverently on his right cheek. Gone was the scar of their first battle. He stared at her, once again whole and fulfilled.

Without wasting another second, she leaned in and swept him up in a kiss. A kiss so packed with love that it threatened to spill over her and turn into happy tears. His hand clutched at her back like a lifeline. 

“You’re here,” he murmured to her as they broke the kiss and he in turn crushed her in a tight, desperate hug. “You’re finally here. I thought I was going to be too late, I’d never thought… God, I’m sorry, so sorry for everything—"

“It was never too late,” Rey told him. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome, I guess.” A wide, toothy grin spread across his face, his eyes angled downward. Rey’s heart almost stopped at a sight so wonderful. Never before had she seen this man smile, and it was something she was going to need to see every day from now on.

…

“There she is,” Poe shouted over his shoulder from the cockpit as Chewie bleated his agreement. The Falcon rocked as she pulled out of hyperspeed. “We’re here.” 

Finn and Rose glanced over to Rey from the chess table to see if she had heard the announcement through her concentration. Ben’s mechanical leg still required a little tinkering; one of the gyros had ground down into a motor and caused the entire thing to clank slightly with each step. He winced slightly as Rey tugged particularly hard on a loose bolt. 

Having lost his leg from the knee down due to his injury on Exegol, he trusted no one else’s expertise other than hers. 

“This old ship’s still got it,” Ben mused quietly, his big brown eyes roaming over every compartment of his father’s old ship. Rey grinned at his curiosity, finishing the final touches on his machinery. 

“We’ve got our best people on it.” She flourished her hand around the cabin, where Poe and Chewie had just arrived from the cockpit. Finn and Rose waved awkwardly across the room.

“Alright, how did you guys want to do this?” Poe asked the pair of them, shifting uneasily as he made eye contact with Ben. Ever since she had taken him back to the Resistance, her friends acted understandably skittish around him. Except Chewie, who had accepted his late friend’s son with literal open arms, almost breaking his cracked ribs the first time they met back up.

Ben laid his hand across the small, rose gold box sitting across from him. 

“You think we can send this through the pod entrance?” he asked Rey, sliding his pant leg down and standing up slowly. 

“That’s probably the best way,” she answered, her tone now somber. The rest of her friends bowed their heads as she and Ben moved from their spot over to the set of bolted metal doors that once led to the Falcon’s escape pod.

Outside the cockpit window, the ruins of Alderaan drifted serenely by. His mother’s home world was now reduced to rubble, but that didn’t stop Ben from wanting to return and pay his respects to the woman who held the galaxy in her hand, the woman who never quite stopped believing in him, even in his very darkest moments.

Inside the decorated rose gold case was his mother’s lightsaber, the last trace of her Jedi days. Just as she had put that part of her past to rest in exchange for her Resistance, Ben and Rey would lay her to rest one more time.

Silence permeated the Falcon’s interior until the only sounds that could be heard were the distant pings of transmission chatter and the breathes of the people on board. Rey slid the case into a large slot by the left side of the doors while Ben held the release down. 

The case slid through the wall and out the other side, now floating gracefully among the pieces of Alderaan like a star in the wake of millions of planets. 

All of the pieces in the right place. His mother’s memory would live on.

“Thank you,” Ben told everyone in the lounge after a moment of honorary silence.

Finn and Rose nodded, squeezing hands under the chess table. 

“No, thank you.” Poe walked over to the former Supreme Leader. To Rey’s surprise, he held out his hand to shake.

Ben hesitated, then shook it generously. He still wasn’t used to positive reinforcement like this. 

Chewie growled low and long, as if sighing, then wrapped his arms around Ben, engulfing him in a sea of fur. Ben hugged back as best as he could, almost choking on the hair.

“Wanna start a game of chess?” Finn asked the Wookie, who roared his assent. Rey’s friends all gathered around the board and watched as the holographic pieces warped to life. Rose and Finn were sitting as a team, Poe and Chewie as another. 

Rose waved Ben and Rey over eagerly. “Come on, we could use some Force intuition over here! From what Finn tells me, the Wookie cheats.”

Chewie voiced his disgust at the accusation, which earned a bark of laughter from Poe.

Rey chuckled and slid her hand up Ben’s wrist. “Maybe in a bit. We’ll be right back.”

Ben felt her hand drifting up his wrist and decided to follow after her.

As their friends underwent their game of Dejaraak, Rey pulled Ben into the cockpit of the Falcon and not-so-subtlety shut the doors behind them with a wave of her other hand. 

A fantastic sight beheld them. Nebulas shimmered blue and pink through the vacuum of space while stars dotted the surrounding blackness with pinpricks of light, as if someone poked tiny holes through a black sheet. Looking out from the dome-like windows of the cockpit, it seemed like the galaxy held you in the palm of its hand.

“Nice view, yes?” Rey asked, crossing her arms over her chest and taking a seat in the pilot’s chair. The control panels in front of her beeped and clicked quietly, adding to the atmosphere outside. 

“Incredible” he whispered back. But his gaze wasn’t turned on the beauty outside. His eyes solely focused on her. 

“Oh, stop that,” she joked, swatting at his arm. 

Again, he smiled that same wide, crooked smile. 

Leia’s lightsaber languidly sailed father and farther away. They watched in contented silence.

“You think it’s all over?” Ben asked suddenly, his voice growing a bit fearful. “Do you think we’re in a better place?” 

He reached his hand out to Rey and she clasped it gently.

She leaned forward and peered into the cotton candy nebula clouds swirling outside. Maz had been absolutely correct about her speech to her on Takodana. The belonging she sought wasn’t with her parents or her lineage to the great Emperor. It was ahead, and it was with Ben Solo that she would find it.

“The galaxy is whole again and I’m finally with you. What better place could there be?” she answered.

A tense moment later they were kissing again. Ben leaned forward to close the gap between them, placing his lips on hers with the upmost care and compassion. Dark locks of hair fell into her face, and she giggled slightly at the way they tickled her nose. 

While their kiss on Exegol had tasted desperate and hurried, this kiss took its time, relished in its time. Rey would wait another lifetime on Jakku for another kiss like this one.

The galaxy hummed in relief and all was well.


End file.
